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  HAVANA (AP) — The house on Villegas Street, in the heart of Old Havana,
  looks nothing like the stately two-story home it used to be a century
  ago, with its high ceilings, wrought iron railings, semicircular arches
  and stairs covered in white marble. Its former elegance is such that
  local lore says it used to belong to a marquise.

  Today, everything inside the six-family unit is chaos.

  The roots of a tree protrude through the wall of a makeshift toilet
  where birds have made their nests. The roofs of the first and second
  floors are propped up. There is rubble and fresh sand scattered
  everywhere. The walls seem to tilt and the façade has completely
  disappeared, exposing a patio where one can see freshly washed clothes
  hanging.

  The structure is one of many once luxurious houses in the island nation
  that in recent years have partially collapsed — or suffer visible
  damage. Barely 100 meters (yards) away, also on Villegas Street, [1]a
  similar building fell in earlier this month, causing three deaths.
  [2]A crane lifts firefighters in a cage toward a building in search of
  survivors after it partially collapsed in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, Oct.
  4, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Residents say they have repeatedly asked authorities for help to no
  avail. Years of neglect, [3]inclement weather and a deepening economic
  crisis only aggravate the fear that their home will eventually
  collapse.

  “How can we not live in fear? Every time it rains I feel like small
  pebbles come falling down on me,” said Maricelys Colás, a retired
  64-year-old who has lived in the house with her 85-year-old mother for
  59 years. “And a collapse doesn’t warn you.”
  Maricelys Colás poses for a portrait in the mirror of her bedroom
  inside the dilapidated mansion where she lives with five other families
  on Villegas Street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. (AP
  Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Maricelys Colás poses for a portrait in the mirror of her bedroom
  inside the dilapidated mansion where she lives with five other families
  on Villegas Street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. “How can we
  not live in fear? Every time it rains I feel like small pebbles come
  falling down on me,” said the retired 64-year-old who has lived in the
  house with her 85-year-old mother for 59 years. (AP Photo/Ramon
  Espinosa)

  The Cuban government has in the past acknowledged the problem of
  housing deterioration, but says the lack of material resources prevents
  it from tackling it. Yet, many Cubans wonder why the pace of investment
  in tourism megaprojects such as hotels — a vital business sector that
  has failed to take off in at least the last two years — is not slowing
  down to address the dire housing crisis.

  The house on Villegas Street was built at the end of the 18th century
  or the beginning of the 19th on a plot measuring about 15 meters (50
  feet) wide by 60 meters (about 200 feet) deep. Three families live on
  the ground floor, where there used to be a main patio and rooms for the
  domestic staff. Three other families live on the more deteriorated top
  floor, where cracks abound and the staircase creaks as you climb it.
  Residents walk past dilapidated mansion on Villegas Street in Havana,
  Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Residents walk past dilapidated mansion on Villegas Street in Havana,
  Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. The two-story building, which houses six
  families, is one of many, once luxurious houses that in recent years
  have partially collapsed or suffered visible damage. (AP Photo/Ramon
  Espinosa)

  All of the residents say the building once belonged to the Marquise of
  Pinar del Río, a title granted by the Spanish crown when the island was
  part of its domains. The Associated Press could not verify that, but
  its elegant design is visible.

  Nowadays, everything smells of mold.

  AP interviewed all the residents in the unit, except for an elderly man
  who was temporarily staying in a relative’s house. They unanimously
  reported having made efforts before the government, requesting to live
  elsewhere or to have access to materials for repairs. They said they
  never received a response.

  The Cuban government did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
  A mural decorates a wall inside a destroyed, abandoned building on San
  Lazaro street near the malecon seawall in downtown Havana, Cuba,
  Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  A mural decorates a wall inside a destroyed, abandoned building on San
  Lazaro street near the malecon seawall in downtown Havana, Cuba,
  Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023. The housing situation in Cuba is critical, with
  buildings partially or completely collapsing under the weight of
  storms, lack of maintenance and years of neglect. (AP Photo/Ramon
  Espinosa)

  Mario Luis Poll, a 57-year-old art restorer who has lived in the
  building for 19 years, walks around his unit showing a reporter all the
  repairs he has done to try to hold the ceiling together after the floor
  of the room above collapsed.

  Right above him, 47-year-old musician Marcos Villa faces a different
  problem: Foliage from a tree is growing out of his improvised bathroom.

  “The struts (the wooden posts that support the roof of the entire
  construction) are almost just for decoration,” Poll said, shrugging in
  a sign of resignation.

  [4]Cuba’s housing crisis is one of the most pressing challenges facing
  the island, where a humid climate, the passage of hurricanes and other
  storms, poor maintenance and a low completion rate of new ones are
  usually among the top complaints of Cubans.
  Mario Luis Poll sits for a photo on his bed behind a broken wall inside
  a partially destroyed mansion where he lives with five other families
  on Villegas Street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. (AP
  Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Mario Luis Poll sits for a photo on his bed behind a broken wall inside
  a partially destroyed mansion where he lives with five other families
  on Villegas Street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Oct. 5, 2023. The
  57-year-old art restorer who has lived in the building for 19 years has
  done repairs to try to hold his roof together after the floor of the
  room above collapsed, saying that the wooden posts that support the
  roof of the entire construction are almost just for decoration. (AP
  Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Cuba’s director of housing, Vivian Rodríguez, said earlier this month
  that the island has a housing deficit of 800,000 homes, especially in
  the provinces of Havana, Holguín, Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey.

  Government figures from 2020 say Cuba had 3.9 million homes, out of
  which nearly 40% were deemed to be in only fair or poor condition.

  “The situation is critical,” said Abel Tablada, professor at the
  Faculty of Architecture of the Technological University of Havana,
  adding that rebuilding and restoring partially collapsed buildings
  “requires many resources that the Cuban state does not have in these
  moments of acute crisis.”
  Dilapidated and collapsed buildings line San Lazaro street, where a
  man, left, collects bricks in downtown Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 10,
  2023. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  Dilapidated and collapsed buildings line San Lazaro street, where a
  man, left, collects bricks in downtown Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 10,
  2023. Cuba’s housing crisis is one of the most pressing challenges
  facing the island, where a humid climate, the passage of cyclones and
  hurricanes, poor maintenance of old buildings and a low completion rate
  of new ones are usually among the top complaints among residents. (AP
  Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

  The residents of the house in Villegas Street, tired of asking
  authorities for help, can only sigh about the fate of the former
  mansion they inhabit.

  “If those marquises came back to life and saw this house, they would
  surely die again,” joked Elayne Clavel, 26, wife of musician Villa.

____

  Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at
  [5]https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

References

  1. https://apnews.com/article/cuba-havana-building-collapse-8d22e31ddab92c49fade8d07d065dc6a
  2. https://apnews.com/article/cuba-havana-building-collapse-8d22e31ddab92c49fade8d07d065dc6a
  3. https://apnews.com/article/business-cuba-caribbean-droughts-economy-be688d051fc0c9f4bab6bd9c72d7c205
  4. https://apnews.com/article/climate-storms-hurricanes-havana-20b72ee44343b926b09cabe8086b8a9c
  5. https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

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